F1 | Yuki Tsunoda secures a hard-fought ninth place at the Dutch GP

Yuki Tsunoda finally returned to the points at Zandvoort with a hard-earned ninth place. After his second pit stop, he was stuck for about 20 laps in the wrong throttle map, which reduced his power up to 40% of the pedal. Despite the issue, Yuki Tsunoda managed to climb back into the top 10, a milestone he hadn’t achieved since Imola.

The Dutch Grand Prix marked a pivotal weekend in many ways for the future of Yuki Tsunoda and Red Bull. The progress he showed in the races leading up to the summer break had encouraged Red Bull management to postpone a final decision on their second driver for 2026, with an internal battle ongoing between the Japanese driver and Isack Hadjar, who has had an impressive season in Racing Bulls.

Tsunoda hadn’t scored points since the Imola round, where he had damaged his car in a serious qualifying crash, constantly having to play catch-up. At Zandvoort, after seven races without points, he finally returned to the top 10 with a solid ninth place, though the result was clearly helped by incidents and multiple retirements that influenced the race outcome.

However, the achievement was somewhat overshadowed by Isack Hadjar’s first career podium, the standout performance of the Dutch weekend, as the two drivers continue to compete for Red Bull’s 2026 seat.

There was, however, a crucial detail of Yuki Tsunoda’s race that went largely unnoticed: he was stuck in the wrong throttle map for the entire final part of the race—the 20 laps between his second pit stop and the checkered flag. “We stayed in the wrong map after the last stop. He had to drive with a throttle map that was really unfriendly,” explained team principal Laurent Mekies.

While it’s true that engine maps are locked between qualifying and the race due to a regulation introduced a few years ago, there are certain parameters teams can adjust to optimize specific situations, such as the launch at the start or the restart after a pit stop. Each team has its own procedure for this.

When entering the pit lane, drivers switch the throttle map and Power Unit settings to ensure optimal parameters for restarting from a standstill, similar to the race start. Each team names this differently: for McLaren it’s called “launch mode,” while Red Bull refers to it as “Strat 12.”

The engineer correctly instructed Tsunoda to switch back to “Strat 11” after the pit stop, but here the problem occurred: Tsunoda remained stuck in “Strat 12,” the setting used for pit stops, even after returning to the track, immediately suffering a power drop.

The engineers quickly noticed the situation but could not intervene to unlock the map. As a result, Tsunoda was left with a configuration optimized more for a stationary restart than for racing. From the pit wall, the team explained the consequences of remaining in that map. “Ok, so we’re stuck in the [wrong] pedal map. It’s very flat between 15% and 40%. You have no power until 40% of the accelerator, and we can’t fix it on track. Try to adapt before the Safety Car ends,” communicated Tsunoda’s race engineer Richard Wood, instructing him on how to adjust his driving style for the restart.

Changing the map outside the pit lane was impossible, as Laurent Mekies explained after the race, meaning the Japanese driver had to continue with the wrong map until the checkered flag. “When you’re in pit lane, you switch maps. And if you don’t switch back, you stay in that map for the rest of the time. That’s what happened,” Mekies said.

After the pit stop, Tsunoda rejoined in 13th place behind the Safety Car but had the opportunity to gain positions against drivers who hadn’t stopped and were on hard tires with over 30 laps completed, such as Pierre Gasly in the Alpine and Gabriel Bortoleto in the Sauber. He ultimately climbed to ninth place, aided by Norris’ retirement.

It was a strong result considering the circumstances, though managing the race until the end was far from simple, requiring him to adapt and use the accelerator more aggressively to compensate for the 40% power reduction. The data shows that despite increased grip from the tires and a lighter car, his initial throttle application in the last 20 laps was much more aggressive.

“At one point, the Safety Car was faster than my car. The team did a fantastic job minimizing the damage, and things went much better. But still, there was something in the car that reduced performance a lot. So it was a good execution on my part,” Tsunoda said.

“The first Safety Car didn’t help at all, and neither did the second. The drivers I was battling finished fifth or sixth, and even in the last stint, I was trying to gain positions while dealing with those problems. Scoring points wasn’t easy. Normally ninth place isn’t anything special, but I think it gives me confidence for the future.”